Introduction
The McIntyre River is a coldwater tributary of Lake Superior that flows through the city of Thunder Bay. It supports a naturally reproducing salmonid community consisting of resident brook trout and migratory steelhead. The river's 16,000 hectare watershed stretches for 48 kilometres from its headwaters at Trout Lake to the city of Thunder Bay. The upper reaches are mostly boreal forest and swamp, transitioning into urbanization as it bisects Thunder Bay.
Steelhead were introduced into Lake Superior during the late 1800's. By the early 1900's, they had established a self-sustaining population in the McIntyre River. In the late 1970's through to the mid-1980's, the combination of a dam at Lake Tamblyn, Lakehead University (that included an ineffective fishway), plus a five-fish daily harvest limit reduced the adult spawning population and the quality of the angling experience.
A new fish-ladder constructed in 1985, plus habitat modifications above Central Avenue (Chair Pool) and above the TransCanada highway (Boy's Falls) in the mid-1990's, improved upstream migration of spawning adult steelhead. In spite of these improvements, the adult steelhead population remained low until harvest regulations (one fish per day over 69 cm total length) were enacted in 1999.